[vrganj]

Why is it all either the same people or the same birds?

Was that an explicit part of the brief artists were given?

I feel like the selection of motifs is more interesting and where more of the creative process in defining a representation of Europe lies than just how to draw and layout those motifs.

[klausa]

Yes, the motifs were selected ~1.5y ago: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2025/html/ecb.pr2501...

[gherkinnn]

Offensively dull. One shudders to think about the endless bickering that went in to this.

May I propose 6 shades of off-white adorned with geometric shapes. €5 gets dots, €10 lines, €20 triangles and so on. €100 may have pentagrams instead of pentagons to keep Twitter on its toes.

[klausa]

I don’t know; I think the fact that the designs are so different from each other is actually a testament to the fact that the brief was actually pretty well written, because it allowed so many different interpretations!

And that’s only the finalist 10; I’d genuinely love to see the whole submission set.

[edelbitter]

I wonder if it would have permissible to submit the birds (obviously great) and the buildings as as they could have looked if they embodied the combined architectural prowess of the union.. in place of the vitreous crimes against aesthetics that happened to be cheap enough when construction started.

[Dilettante_]

Pentagons are plenty occult fnord!

[vrganj]

As an Austrian, it feels a bit annoying that the Germans got their one famous composer - they're kind of our thing! Why not Mozart, Strauss, Haydn, Schubert?

It's also unfortunate that the nice peaceful bird motif was paired with the ugly modern buildings on the other side.

[matthiasv]

> Mozart

I don't want to open old wounds but Mozart's nationality is debated and warrants its own long Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart%27s_nationality

[tgv]

These people can't be serious. They're just trolling.

César Franck was Dutch, BTW.

[cisophrene]

> Germans got their one famous composer

I think you just made J.S. Bach roll over in his grave.

And don't forget: Brahms, Handel, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Richard Strauss, Wagner.

The competition is not so one-sided.

[tacker2000]

Bertha von Suttner on the 200 EUR is Austrian

[haunter]

I've never seen a 200€ note irl (and not the no more printed but still legal tender 500€ either)

[sparqlittlestar]

I onve saw a €500 note when I was exchanging guilders at the fentral bank and asked if I could see one. They showed me, from behind the glass. It's big

[abc123abc123]

Don't you worry. This is a political process and politicians are basically big children, so no country will ever accept notes without someone famous from their country on the note.

So al will be watered down to abstract art or animals in the end, so that the suggestion with the least amount of friction gets accepted.

Like all decision in democracy, it is not about finding the best solution, it's about the solution with the least nr of votes against it. That is why democracy never works in the long term, because it is a long, drawn out, trip to the bottom.

[lava_pidgeon]

" Like all decision in democracy, it is not about finding the best solution, it's about the solution with the least nr of votes against it. That is why democracy never works in the long term, because it is a long, drawn out, trip to the bottom. "

Working democracies are the countries with most livable places on Earth..this includes many countries in Europe.

[abc123abc123]

So livable that people are no longer having children? So livable, that people no longer see any hope or meaning in their lives and the future?

The highest incomes on the planet, are in monarchies like Liechtenstein and Monaco. Singapore, which cannot be called a democracy, is one of the safest countries on the planet.

Another interesting way to look at it is at the debt. The debt of most (all?) democracies is sky rocketing. That means the "livability" is an illusion paid for by borrowed money.

[lava_pidgeon]

Liechtenstein is heavenly tied to Switzerland, Monaco to France. They don't exist without Democracies.

Safety is definitely not the only metric on Life quality. There is a reason why Singapore is called Singaboor and South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have a way more cultural impact.

[jenadine]

democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried

[izacus]

TBH the only acceptable approach here would be similar to coins - where each member state may print their own people on some of the notes to keep representation.

Putting 6 people of 27 member states is just asking for trouble and lacks representation.

(I still prefer the current approach of using non-existing bridgets as a motif.)

[ashivkum]

nothing works in the long term for the right definition of long

[klausa]

I'm sure most countries will have their pet peeves with this; I've seen a bunch of Polish people being upset about the phrasing of Marie Curie's name already.

[holgerschurig]

At least you can be sure that Germans won't "adopt" them, e.g. you can often read "the german architect Hundertwasser" or "the german author Kafka" :-/

On the other side: most classic composers are from times when there was no Germany. E.g. J. S. Bach is from Sachsen-Eisenach :-)

[gherkinnn]

In a similar vein, who gets to claim Nicola Tesla?

Europe used to be much more of a mess than today's neatly drawn nation states, retroactively assigning origin is a silly endeavour.

[ahartmetz]

Or Adolf Hitler, who was clearly Austrian! He kinda made up being German by himself, so it doesn't count.

(Edited "Germany" to German - "Germany" was an interesting typo and not entirely wrong: He said "One people, one empire, one leader!")

[maxnoe]

Because he composed the anthem?

[RamblingCTO]

Composers are an austrian thing? lol Europe has plenty of composers all over, especially Germany

[expedition32]

Beethoven was born in the 18th century. Germany did not exist yet.

[arximboldi]

Was gonna say the same thing. Also by the standards of the time one could argue that Austria and Germany where kinda the same thing. There's a parallel history where Austria could have ended up being another German Lander. Nationalism is a weird and now anachronic 19th century invention.

[thyristan]

The people and birds (and I think the buildings as well) were selected by a committee beforehand, to make sure they represent all of the EU, aren't controversial, yadayada...

[SiempreViernes]

Yeah, the motifs was probably part of the brief as picking the symbols to represent the entire EU is incredibly political and its just best to separate that discussion from the deeply subjective "what looks best" discussion.